So I've been putting off writing this review, because I've really been enjoying this series as a whole, but this episode was just utterly awful in every way and I'm disappointed that it could drop so far so fast.
A little girl who hears voices runs through a forest into the TARDIS, The Doctor is confused that there's a forest outside as he's meant to be in London, however it turns out he is, the entire earth has been covered in a forest, mysteriously. Meanwhile Clara and Danny have been supervising some kids on a sleepover in a museum and eventually come across the Doctor and then they have to try and figure out what's going on and how to save the world from an incoming solar flare.
This episode is just so boring, almost nothing happens, the Doctor barely needed to be there and the child actors were just the worst. The forest itself is well done and kind of an interesting idea, but it just has no menace to it that makes it feel like all kinds of pointless filler. The characters all just kind of wander around it doing nothing; there is one moment of forced peril with wolves and a tiger, but they don't feel actually dangerous, due to being really poorly cut in footage. You can really see the join in the effects, the editors need to work harder if that is their output.
I can't even find anything else to say about this episode beyond Clara and Danny's awful childcare skills, not taking a register and never noticing one of the kids, who you have to pay extra attention to because she takes medication, was missing, really?
A little girl who hears voices runs through a forest into the TARDIS, The Doctor is confused that there's a forest outside as he's meant to be in London, however it turns out he is, the entire earth has been covered in a forest, mysteriously. Meanwhile Clara and Danny have been supervising some kids on a sleepover in a museum and eventually come across the Doctor and then they have to try and figure out what's going on and how to save the world from an incoming solar flare.
This episode is just so boring, almost nothing happens, the Doctor barely needed to be there and the child actors were just the worst. The forest itself is well done and kind of an interesting idea, but it just has no menace to it that makes it feel like all kinds of pointless filler. The characters all just kind of wander around it doing nothing; there is one moment of forced peril with wolves and a tiger, but they don't feel actually dangerous, due to being really poorly cut in footage. You can really see the join in the effects, the editors need to work harder if that is their output.
I can't even find anything else to say about this episode beyond Clara and Danny's awful childcare skills, not taking a register and never noticing one of the kids, who you have to pay extra attention to because she takes medication, was missing, really?
So I'll talk about the moments with Missy and heaven or whatever the hell it is. Every now and then this series this woman has popped up and talked to dead people or looked on at stuff that is happening. This is the obvious attempt to draw in some idea of a mystery, we're meant to be all intrigued by what it is and what is it leading to, but it just comes off as fairly cheap and mediocre, not really any more interesting than the likes of Bad Wolf, Mr. Saxon or people mentioning Torchwood. The Doctor has no agency to these things being mentioned, it's a mystery with no-one to solve it and that isn't interesting; the cracks in the wall and Amy's baby were good mysteries because the Doctor was involved and trying to solve them, but this is just the show acting mysterious for the sake of it because they think that will draw in more viewers for some kind of finale event.
So overall a terrible, boring episode and an uninteresting attempt at a mystery, not a great week, but here's hoping the two-part finale will bring it back to the high quality of the rest of the episodes this series.
So overall a terrible, boring episode and an uninteresting attempt at a mystery, not a great week, but here's hoping the two-part finale will bring it back to the high quality of the rest of the episodes this series.